Electronic Frequencies

The edition includes 37 works and has a total duration of 6 hours. With the multitude of participating composers and the wide range of approaches to this musical field, captures the dynamics and richness of contemporary electroacoustic music creation by composers who come from or live in Greece.

01. Nikos Stavropoulos – Khemenu. (2022). 8.29.
02. Epameinondas Fassianos – Tokyo. (2023). 8.00.
03. Stelios Tsiloglou-Ignatiadis – The Hunt. (2022). 11.12.
04. Dimitris Bakas – Sonatina – 3 Miniatures. (2023). 5.47.
05. Ioannis Panagiotou – My Voice. (2021). 8.54.
06. Stelios Giannoulakis – Sharp Edges. (2023). 9.59.
07. Konstantinos Karathanasis – On a Cup of Tea. (2015). 2.05.
08. Nikos Kanelakis – Apex. (2023). excerpt. 5.45.

In order of appearence:
The name of the work, Khemenu, is derived from Egyptian mythology and refers to The Ogdoad, a group of eight primordial deities worshipped in ancient Egypt. The group consisted of four male and female couples who are symbolising the balance between the primary elements of the cosmos. The notion of the Ogdoad (group of eight) is also found in early gnostic belief systems and ancient astronomy and cosmology (eight celestial bodies), as well as Chinese mythology (eight immortals). Eight is also the number of channels in a 2nd order Ambisonic recording (A Format), the technique used to capture the raw materials for the work. Nikos Stavropoulos (Athens, Greece, 1975) is a composer of predominantly acousmatic and mixed music. He read music at the University of Wales (Bangor, Wales, UK), where he studied composition with Andrew Lewis and completed a doctorate at the University of Sheffield (England, UK) under the supervision of Adrian Moore. His music is performed and broadcast regularly around the world and has been awarded internationally on several occasions. His practice is concerned with notions of tangibility and immersivity in acousmatic experiences and the articulation of acoustic space, in the pursuit of probable aural impossibilities. Since 2006, he has been a member of the Music, Sound & Performance Group at Leeds Beckett University (Leeds, England, UK), where he is a Professor in Composition.

Tokyo (2023) Epameinondas (Epa) Fassianos fixed media: 2 channels duration: 8.00. Embedded within the tapestry of Shinto tradition are sacred shrines housing distinctive round bells tethered to lengthy ropes. A ritual of resonance is woven when the rope’s sway summons forth the bell’s vibrant peal, an act symbolizing the approach to the divine kami. Tokyo embarks on an auditory journey, encapsulating cultural intricacies, environmental echoes, and personal reflections. Here, the past and present converge, memories intertwine with imagination, all within a sonic narrative that transcends the limitations of time and space. Epameinondas Fassianos (Epa Fassianos) is a Greek composer of electroacoustic and ambient music. He was born in Athens in 1982. He obtained his PhD from the University of Manchester (NOVARS Research Centre), under the supervision of Professor David Berezan. His area of interest was: Creating works of Acousmatic Music based on aspects of Greek Culture (Religion, Traditional Greek Instruments, Mythology).

Stelios Tsiloglou-Ignatiadis fixed media: 2 channels duration: 11.12. The Hunt is a work which was inspired by Oresteia, Aeschylus’ trilogy. This piece does not intend so much to narrate the events of the trilogy with precision as to explore the violent relationship between hunter and prey that exists throughout its duration. On the one hand, the destiny that haunts the house of Atreides and that leads to the violent murders of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. On the other hand, the abominable act of matricide by Orestes and the relentless hunt by the Furies. And finally the hunt for justice and purification which Aeschylus very masterfully introduces in the last part of the trilogy. The sound here is treated more as a gesture and great emphasis is placed on spatialisation. Stelios Tsiloglou – Ignatiadis was born and raised in Ioannina, Greece and is a senior student of music composition. In 2017 he started studying Composition in the Ionian University, Department of Music Studies focusing on Electroacoustic music. He is an active member of the live electronic music ensemble of the Ionian University “asabe” with which he has participated in many concerts. His practice at the moment focuses on acousmatic works using fixed media and also writing music for the performative arts, which was recently heard in the performances “too much” – for a single man with a radio, and “Alice gets shrank by Fear” in collaboration with the Municipal Theatre of Ioannina. From 2021 he participates with his works in the annual festival of HELMCA.

Sonatina – 3 Miniatures (2023) Dimitris Bakas fixed media: 2 channels duration: 5.47. The work is a kind of contemporary Sonatina in the form of 3 miniatures for classical Guitar and field recordings. The first one is written for Guitar with drinking glass and sounds from formula 1, the second is written for Guitar with drinking glass and sounds from swings in a playground and the third one is written for guitar and pop corn making sounds in kettle. The work is dedicated to guitarist Andreas Ziakas. Dimitris Bakas is composer and sound artist.

My Voice (2021) Ioannis Panagiotou fixed media: 8 channels duration: 8.54. My Voice, composed during the COVID-19 pandemic, is a composition for electric guitar, which aims to create an abstract narrative solely created by sound. Ioannis Panagiotou is a UK-based artist and composer. His art uses cross?media narratives for exploring issues of memory, migration and identity. Ioannis’ works have been presented internationally in Japan, UK, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland and Greece. He has worked with F-Wakaba Dance, Plus-Minus Ensemble, Red Note Ensemble, Edinburgh Quartet, Decoda, Edinburgh Film Music Orchestra, Edinburgh Contemporary Ensemble, St Andrews New Music Ensemble, Theros Theatre Ensemble and Portativ Ensemble. Holding a PhD in Composition and the Arts from the University of Edinburgh, Ioannis teaches Composing for Screen at the Edinburgh College of Art, he is the artistic director of the Peter Nelson Ensemble, and is an Artist in Residence at the Zurich University of the Arts. Dr Jack Walker (Sound design and spatialisation) is a composer, sound designer and researcher based in Edinburgh. He particularly enjoys working on pieces that exploit some degree of chaos or indeterminacy, using computer systems, improvisers and non-linear system dynamics. Dimitris Soukaras (performance), a Greek classical guitarist in London, is advancing his studies at the Royal Academy of Music. He collaborates with Greek Contemporary Music Composers, premiering their works at the Academy. Dimitris has won multiple awards, and has performed as a soloist in prestigious venues across Europe. He’s also recorded a CD, “From Dawn to Dusk,” and directs the MUÓA Concert Series in Ancient Corinth, with support from institutions like the Academy of Athens and the Royal Academy of Music.

Sharp Edges (2023) Stelios Giannoulakis fixed media: 2 channels duration: 9.59. Continuing my creative exploration on the relationships among diametrically opposite sound characters, this work develops an abstract musical narrative by repeatedly cutting and re-instating the continuous in timbral and tonal development. Stelios Giannoulakis is a composer, sound designer and engineer. Music and sound design for theater, dance, video, cinema, sound diffusion, circuit bending, improvisation, interactivity. Plays solo, with group projects (Schema Musicalis, ElektroBalkana, RSLG quartet) or through various collaborations with musicians and other artists. PhD in Electroacoustic Composition (University of Wales Bangor), MA in Digital Music Technology (Keele University), first degree in Electronic and Biomedical Engineering (NTUA). Teaches Electroacoustic Composition and Creative Music Technology for CMRC at Athens Conservatoire and is a founding member of HELMCA (Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association).

On a Cup of Tea (2015) Konstantinos Karathanasis fixed media: 2 channels duration: 2.05. The main inspiration and point of departure of this miniature is tea, which plays an important role in Japanese and British cultures. The form of this piece has been influenced by the three-versed structure of Haiku poems. In addition, the piece features two contrasting pictures/states of mind/moods, as haikus usually do, by moving between soundscape reality and acousmatic abstraction. All the sounds in the acousmatic section derive from porcelain cups and saucers processed in various degrees. Lastly, I would like to thank my good friend, Robin Noad, for lending me his beautiful voice. Konstantinos Karathanasis as an electroacoustic composer draws inspiration from modern poetry, artistic cinema, abstract painting, mysticism, Greek mythology, and the writings of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. His compositions have been performed at numerous festivals and received awards in international competitions, including Musica Nova, SIME, SEAMUS/ASCAP, Música Viva and Bourges. Recordings of his music are released by SEAMUS, ICMA, Musica Nova, Innova, Equilibrium and HELMCA. Konstantinos holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University at Buffalo. A Stavros Niarchos Foundation Fellow for Spring 2020, he is Professor of Composition & Music Technology at the University of Oklahoma.

Apex (2023) Nikos Kanelakis fixed media: 2 channels duration: 5.45. An attempt to sonically depict the everyday life in an urban environment, capturing the various stages of human activity within it (from calmness to peak hours), utilizing the escalation of sound energy, which leads to an inevitable climax, as a means of expressing the emotions that can be evoked in someone through their encounter with such a place, such as anxiety, awe, excitement, or even fear. Nikos Kanelakis comes from Thessaloniki. He studied Electroacoustic Music Composition at the Department of Music Studies of the Ionian University and is currently a postgraduate student in the program ” Sonic Arts and Audio Technologies” of the same department. His main subject is the acousmatic music composition. His interests extend to sound design, soundscape music and interactive sound media. In 2016 he became a member of the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association and since then his works are presented at the annual concerts of the association.

Production: Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers’Association Editor: Nikolas Valsamakis Date: January 2024 Catalogue number: HEM002.